DINING ROOM PLANS

Getting our new sofa has me itching to start on the other side of the room! The long living-dining room takes up around three quarters of our ground floor and is our only living space - so this room has to function as many things - play room, dining room, den, formal sitting room, craft room, extra guest room and office. Although part of me dreams of a bigger house with a designated room for everything, a much bigger part of me is really happy that this room forces us to be together and, because we want to have an un-cluttered and relaxing look, forces us to pair down and only keep what we need.

The dining half of the room especially has to work hard. We need easy to access and maintain toy and kids craft storage - and be set up for easy clearing and cleaning after meals and playing. We want it to work for cozy family dinners and big party meals and be a practical space for work and meetings.  

rug (no longer available, similar here)- light shade - console - dining table - chair

We're hoping to store all the kids toys and craft supplies in a console...right now our toy storage looks like this

and I'm so looking forward to getting everything organised and out of site! We didn't have much toy storage in our old house - we kept most of them in our old sofa foot stool so when we moved we bought plastic boxes to use until we knew what we wanted long term (we're planning to use the boxes for loft storage when they're finished with down here). We'll have to have a big donation trip but having a system that makes it easier for the girls to access their toys will hopefully mean that they can easily reach all of the toys that we do keep.

  

We want to keep this room looking cohesive as a whole so we're planning to keep some repeating elements from the sofa side of the room.

We'd love to bring in Persian rugs for both areas and stick to the same mix of wood tones, neutrals and bright whites. We're thinking a traditional table with more a more modern console and chairs will hopefully create a nice balance and not make the super-modern sofa feel out of place.

Our old house didn't have a dining space at all so I'm so excited that soon we'll be able to have big messy kids painting sessions, serve over-night guests breakfast pancakes and have romantic dinners around a big table...I love food so I think having a dining table is going to make me really happy!